When the Prince's nephew, still in high school, proudly showed the Prince his Sony 21 inch computer monitor, he almost turned green with jealousy. He'd always imagined that the standard fifteen inch model was more than adequate. However, ten minutes flying his nephew's hacker's system, staring at the huge Sony and its wonderfully clear images changed his mind on that score. When the Prince decided to emulate his sixteen-year-old royal relative, it hit hard in the checkbook. This was a few years ago when a Sony G 500 cost about the same as a good used car, but the Prince grinned and bore it, wrote the check, and was so glad he did. The Sony weighed a ton and the Prince's retinue developed lombago, carting it up to his royal computer room. There was also the problem of finding a table strong enough to hold it, and to hold it at the right height, but the payoff was immediately, and immense. First, the bigger screen necessarily sits further away from you. Guess what. Less eye-strain. The further an object is from your nose, the less the muscles in your eyes have to contract to focus on it. So, that huge (well-distanced) screen actually reduces visual fatigue considerably, and fatigue is a major enemy of productivity. Improved productivity occurred on the spot, and the Prince's huge investment began paying off immediately. Since those days, the price of the giant monitors has dropped considerably, so that you no longer need a Princely income to put one on your desk. As mentioned, your major problem is now fitting it into your cube or desk scheme in a way which distances it sufficiently from the eyes. It's a major challenge, but worth taking on. If you're working on a laptop all day, and its screen is less than 15 inches, you're losing productivity. Attach an external monitor to that laptop on your desk, and watch how things improve, and how you feel a bit less fatigued after eight hours at the keyboard. And while you're at it, get a big one. A 21 incher probably is too big for your cube or even your desk, but the prices are so low that anything less than sixteen inches is really silly now. So the Prince's 27th tip for increased productivity:the bigger the monitor, the better the productivity.